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<title>I Drag Behind by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28931634">I Drag Behind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur'>Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguously Unrequited Pining, Crushes, F/F, Music, Self-Esteem Issues</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 14:01:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,556</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28931634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Th-the things we do are nothing alike,” Toko’d said. “You can’t f -- fool me.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fukawa Touko/Maizono Sayaka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Drag Behind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d told Sayaka that she wouldn’t be any good at writing songs.</p><p><em> I know better than that</em>, she’d thought, at the same time. <em> It’s just another form of writing poetry. </em></p><p>Sayaka had in fact called her out on it accordingly. “I don’t see why not, Toko,” she’d said, with her bluebird-bubbling laugh. “I have read some of your books, you know — it’s not just that you articulate yourself so well; there’s a rhythm to your words, you know? A poetry in them I think would fit prettily into a song, if you ever tried to write one...”</p><p>“Th-that’s not what I <em> meant</em>,” she’d retorted, hard yet wavering, bashing herself in the head internally for the <em> wrong thing</em>, the <em> nasty thing</em>, she’d known she’d been about to say. “I m-mean I could never do y-<em>your </em> t-type of songwriting; b-b... <em> bubblegum </em> s-stuff made for little g-girls and people without p- <em> problems </em> to soundtrack their sh... <em> shiny, ha... happy lives </em> with.”</p><p>Sayaka had taken a step back, blue eyes round and her eyebrows arching high. She’d paused that way, blinking lightly as Toko had hunched low in posture like an approached animal on the streetside, wringing one hand in the other.</p><p>Then the arcs had become a roof, as Sayaka had smiled, with a wistfulness that had twisted the organs in Toko’s chest in stingingly-tight knots, looking to her like <em> “aren’t you precious, poor thing” </em> pity.</p><p>A disgusting thing which she both hated and didn’t deserve so <em> much </em>as.</p><p>“Pop music may more often than not be meant to be… <em> easy </em> to listen to,” she’d said - the height and breadth of her voice, too, taking on a careful keenness; slicing its shapes, surgically and gingerly, with a thin, shiny knife. She’d shaken her head - that, too, careful: she hadn’t blinked; the curtains of hair framing her face had swayed only just-so. (<em>God, why was I looking so much? </em> Toko asked herself, before answering that she’d just been getting a good eyeful of the kind of woman who looked down on her - effortlessly beautiful, with the voice and moves to sing and dance like she was made to do it, all the boys in the country and -- ...probably around the <em> world </em> <b> <em>wanting </em> </b> her - ) “But… music that doesn’t mean anything isn’t the kind that I want to make. I <em> try </em>not to make it, either.”</p><p>Her head had fallen tilted aside; Toko’s hands had tucked in even tighter against her stomach and her eyes had narrowed.</p><p>“No one has a <em> perfect </em> life.” Her lips had thinned for a second; Toko’d seen her vibrate under the shoulders before her voice had <em> bubbled </em>up again. “...Even me! And I think it’s pointless to pretend otherwise, don’t you?”</p><p>In spite of herself, Toko had found the tension bled out of her back; her shoulders lowered; her hands having steadily, steadily sunk laced in front of her skirt.</p><p><em> Sure</em>, she’d thought to herself, all the while never doubting it.</p><p><em> Prove it</em>, she’d thought, wanting to stay the distance while also wanting to know.</p><p>“I think,” Sayaka had continued, “that it’s… a lot more important to make music that lifts people up despite all that. As long as I have my job, I’d like to use it to inspire people!” She’d smiled a gentle moon-like curve. “Don’t you try to do that with your writing? Put something nice into people’s lives by helping them feel feelings like love and that kind of thing that they might not have gotten the chance to by themselves before?”</p><p>Toko’d bitten hard onto her lip, and masked it with a teeth-showing grimace, her eyes narrowed further to ice chips behind her glasses.</p><p>“Th-the things we do are nothing alike,” she’d said, thick from lungs that’d felt clogged with dust. “You can’t f -- fool me.”</p><p>As Sayaka had continued to beam, brightly and all too coolly, she’d found her words sped up; her mouth had twisted harder with her jaw tightening as she’d felt as if some force may have blown over, and she’d pointed, sharply, in a bid for space.</p><p>“Some sh-shiny, b-beautiful pop idol and a d -- <em> drab </em> -- <em> ...shrewish novelist </em> are <em> nothing alike…! </em>”</p><p>There that look had returned, that sad smile, and Toko had finished spitting her words amidst cracking notes.</p><p>“ -- a-a-and you <em> can’t </em>convince me otherwise!”</p><p>Her hands had dropped tight back into her lap kneading hard with her head dropping to hide from the echoes of her own outburst, as she’d began to grit her teeth openly.</p><p>The wistfulness of Sayaka’s smile had curved in more distinctly.</p><p>Toko’d gritted her teeth faster.</p><p>A small perk-up in the corner of Sayaka’s mouth. “We have to agree to disagree, then,” she said. “But at least… I think there are things to both that aren’t obvious. And that that… complexity, I guess, means that they could have more in common if you looked at it from the right angle!”</p><p>It’d been as if she had -- <em> timed it </em> somehow that just then, the bell from the school building had rung; the <em> strange perfection </em> had left Toko only partway glad to be saved by the bell, while Sayaka had tuned up a fresh, bright beam that shut her eyes from below, and bobbed a bell, and bid Toko an “I’ll see you in class later!”</p><p>Toko had continued to glare behind her as she’d watched her leave, feeling simultaneously as if she’d been complimented and insulted, and had measured to herself the astronomical distance between them in regard after regard to figure out which it was.</p><p>And now, by <em> god</em>, in spite of herself, she was doing something she never chose to do:</p><p>Listen to music while she wrote.</p><p>And it was truly a wretched state of things, and she was truly a disaster at her own craft, because she was not getting any writing done, because by god, she could not <em> help </em>but listen.</p><p>Telling herself that she had better things to do than<em> listen to this chirpy crap</em>, even as she listened to it so closely she saw it forming words in lines on a page, furthering her search to figure out what it was Sayaka had meant, so long ago now that she couldn’t place why she hadn’t been able to stop <em> thinking </em> of that conversation, and of <em> her </em>, and tucked in on herself at what she heard.</p><p>There was a trick to those bright chimes, those neon guitars, those glaringly-pink synths, and above them all, Sayaka’s bouncing, scintillating voice.</p><p>All together, they created a perfect picture - Toko hadn’t been entirely wrong - but not of a perfect life.</p><p>There were little dips to Sayaka’s voice when she sang of sadness and hardship and loneliness, in just too much detail for someone who hadn’t felt any of them, and thought that there was only one kind of each, and that it was the kind that songs told you about - or that she gathered your typical songs said.</p><p>She burst into <em> supernovas </em>at cries of triumph for songs of different subjects - she put wings on a hope for a love that Toko could feel until it made her eyes prick and her nails dig into the board of her spare notebook, and her tone skipped and swished with perky-tart sass at personal finger-wagging victory against some cruel judgment - not an ex’s, she didn’t think; Toko didn’t hear a word about love - that she and the rest of her effortlessly-pretty-pretty band had escaped from.</p><p>And - she drew her arms around herself and pulled her knees up to her chest, shoes on the edge of her chair - she sang an ode to a poet.</p><p>She rocked to herself, as it played, legs of her chair wiggling - each line of this song was longer, riddled with metaphor chains and cutesy puns she scrubbed her hands over her face every time she caught.</p><p>She remembered the whole conversation again on a lyric about <em> teaching every kind of love. </em></p><p>And scrubbed her face again, and found it <em> burning-hot. </em></p><p>She listened to the song much too hard - several times, she’d thought she was about to hear her name, only for something else to follow each <em> tou </em>.</p><p>She listened to the song much too hard several times, in and of itself.</p><p>It finished on a note, again, of a little poem within a poem about a person whose words are so quietly charming, they didn’t have to sing their love to win my heart forever.</p><p>A last instrumental pop, again, marked the moments before it would be on to the next track.</p><p>And again, now, Toko fell forward - weary, across her desk, and a booklet with pages barely-marked and gray-green in the room’s light, with both arms stretched forward.</p><p>Again, she hit back on the squat little radio that sat across from her like an idol statue.</p><p>She blinked sadly, wearily at it to continue her study.</p><p>This time, towards answering <em> new </em> questions, and putting new pieces into place: towards settling the fact that surely, surely, Sayaka had written this song about writers in general - o-or of the whole idea of art in general, or of someone totally different; probably not even a writer. Towards <em> really </em> settling what <em> exactly </em> Sayaka had been trying to prove to her back then, and what it was about Sayaka’s voice that she felt she understood the <em> tells </em>in so well now.</p>
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